Obama, Romney have different views on education

Oct. 17, 2012
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by Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

by Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

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WASHINGTON - Glance at the two presidential candidates' education plans and you may not immediately see much of a difference. Both want greater scrutiny of teacher effectiveness. Both champion privately run, but publicly funded K-12 charter schools as well as higher academic standards. Both want more high school and college graduates and a more competitive workforce.

But scratch beneath the surface and a few key differences emerge. President Obama has given states freedom from the sanctions of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law, while his challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney says he supports the Bush-era law and wants to reinvigorate it.

Obama effectively killed a federal program that offered D.C. students tuition money for area private schools; Romney would double down on the idea, taking the program nationwide and expanding it to give even more funding for kids with disabilities.

Here are a few key ways in which the two candidates differ on education, based on their policy papers and public appearances, as well as statements from campaign advisers:

Early childhood education. Obama has increased funding for Head Start, the 46-year-old federal early childhood education program, but has also pushed to reform it. Last spring, he announced that underperforming local programs must to compete with other providers for federal funding.Romney considers Head Start one of several federal programs that states should take over. On Monday, former Florida State Board of Education chairman Phil Handy, a Romney adviser, said Head Start "has been allowed to go on for decades not as an academic experience, unfortunately, but much more as a social experience, not preparing children for school."

No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Obama has effectively gutted enforcement of the 2002 law, which liberals hate because they say it narrows school curricula and over-emphasizes standardized testing; conservatives see it as an overreach of federal power by President George W. Bush. Obama has offered states waivers from its toughest sanctions if they agree to redesign how they assess and retain teachers, among other tasks.While Romney's former Republican opponents ran away from the law in this year's primaries, he has said he likes NCLB - his education platform is titled "A Chance for Every Child" and a dozen of his top education advisers worked for Bush. Romney says he'd push Congress to reauthorize the law. One adviser, Harvard University scholar Martin West, said if Romney is elected, his administration would review Obama's waivers, which West called "a poor substitute for a comprehensive reauthorization" of NCLB.

Common Core. Obama has pushed states to voluntarily adopt new academic standards known as the Common Core - and he has largely succeeded: 46 states and the District of Columbia are now on track to test kids on the standards within two years, and Obama has handed about $360 million to two groups rushing to create tests.Romney said he thinks states should pay for the tests, and that they should be voluntary. "I don't subscribe to the idea of the federal government trying to push a Common Core on various states," he said at an education event in New York last month. Conservatives have called Common Core a federal takeover of curriculum, a charge Obama strongly denies, pointing out that states have developed it.